OWL
by toe walker
Summary: This is actually an essay we did for world geography class. assignment:create a country. of course i dud a harry potter related one. i still have to make a poster though... ONE SHOT!
1. Chapter 1

Ah, Owl. The country, not the animal. Yes! There is a country named OWL! Get with the times! This country is a place for wannabe wizards who are attempting to replicate the wizarding world of Harry Potter on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at approximately 20°south, 30°west. In the past 15 years the country has done a pretty good job of building itself up, creating a reasonable economy for itself. Because the point of the country is to mimic the Harry Potter universe, a lot of its resources are spent building that image. The capitol city is placed at the top angle of the lightning shaped island because of its superior trading location and the fact that the founder (we will come back to her again, somebody named Boe Balker.) thought that it would look cool on a map if the capitol city were at the top.

One drawback of the location of the island is that it is in a completely different climate zone where the image was meant to be mimicked from. While Owl is a tropical, foresty, very hot place because of the low latitudes it was un-strategically placed in, England is very different from that. It has four definite seasons, and gets much cooler in the winter months. One of the great innovations of Owl is what is called the lightweight cloak, because who could have wizards with no cloaks? It was discovered very early on that too many people would die of heat stroke if everyone wore heavy cloaks all the time, so now there is a nice cooling unit required in each cloak on Owl. Because of the forest aspect of the island, much of the houses and businesses were placed in a scattered looking way in an attempt to leave up as many trees as possible because the founder is an environmentalist… most of the time.

The government on Owl is a republic. Although many of the terms used are different than the rest of the world, many of the aspects of the jobs are the same. For example, instead of parliament or congress, Owl uses the term Wizengamot as is used in the original Harry Potter universe. The economy is socialist; Owl strives for equal social services, such as schooling and healthcare while keeping other aspects of free market economy. The Community has the power to change this with at least two thirds of the population agreement, if they feel like the economy is drifting too far towards communism. Our economy is based mainly on native crops that grow here along with goods and services for tourists.

Owl is based off of the Harry Potter world so many of the customs are similar, but some must change due to location and other facts such as the fact that all of the residents are unfortunately either muggles or squibs. The official language is English, but Owl hosts individuals from around the globe so many other languages are spoken. The food is very diverse as well, though the all-time favorite drink is butter beer. People can brew at home, or buy at a local grocery store. Pumpkin juice is the equivalent to orange juice in other places, it is also homemade or purchased, depending on preference. The recipes are **THIS PART OF THE ESSAY WAS DELETED DUE TO COPYWRITE INFRINGEMENT ISSUES, AND THE FACT THAT THE AUTHOR HAS NO IDEA HOW TO MAKE PUMPKIN JUICE OR BUTTER BEAR. **Quidditch, a favorite sport of the Harry potter universe is the equivalent to Football in the USA. Every school from elementary to college has at least one team. Usually though, because there are so few schools, each school will have multiple teams and will war with one another. Owl has been informed that the rest of the world is catching on and starting to have their own Quidditch teams on the ground, Owl's is actually up in the air on motor powered broom sticks, with remote controlled snitches and bludgers, usually manned by someone in the press box. On strange thing about Owl is that it does not need any airports because everyone owns their own broom or (for family trips) flying car. Nobody is quite certain haw any of the things work, but nobody questions it.

Owl was originally founded by a girl named Boe balker who thought that she had discovered wizards and so she attempted to capture them and sail to Antarctica. Unfortunately, the wizards escaped on their flying broomsticks and Boe and her crew were left stranded on a lightning shaped island due to Boe's poor planning of food supplies. Luckily they were all able to survive on the plentiful island except for one guy named Ben who got bitten by a rattle snake and died, but nobody really liked him anyway. Eventually, Boe was able to call other people onto the island and began building up their economy. Tourists come from all over the world to see the amazing Harry Potter like country that is not at all magical… probably… **OBLIVIATE! **Yup. Not at all magical.

**Special thanks to my dad for ideas. All credit for Harry Potter themes and ideas go to J. K. Rowling!**


	2. Chapter 2

just so ya'll know, i got 91 on the project. a 97 on the essay part though! most of the points taken off were for "making your key not neat" and "not putting land forms in realistic places" (on the map) well i am sooooo sorry that i dont have the artistic skills to make a pretty box and that you did not teach me well enough that a mountain range needed to be bigger than the one i had... grrrrr...

so yah, not to bad of a grade! i was happy with it anyway!


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